Category Archives: Entertainment can be Cheap

July 1, 2013 · 2:24 pm

Summer Nights.

The days are getting hotter and the heat is lasting into the evenings and nights, and summer has only begun. I complain every year about how this house of ours seems to retain the heat and there doesn’t seem to be any relief. So we drive off in the morning to our respective jobs and dwell in air conditioned offices by day, and return to our sweltering home by night. Air conditioning doesn’t seem to help the upstairs rooms, and William’s room seems to hold onto the heat most of all.

We’ve discussed a portable air conditioning unit for his room, but there’s nowhere to run the venting… we have shutters on the inside of the window. We talked about a portable evaporative cooler, but we’re not sure that would be effective, because we don’t really have the driest of climates here. We’ve discussed adding an attic fan, or whole house fan… if we do that, we also need to add vents under the eaves of our roof. We’ve discussed adding a second vent to William’s room, because the vent in his room is so ineffective. I’ve thought about a vent booster, but the reviews are mixed. I’ve even thought about switching his room to the guest room and making the guest room his room, but that really wouldn’t solve the issue as the guest room gets hot, too, just not AS hot. We’re now looking into an in-line air duct booster. We run the A/C and the downstairs cools to 71°F, but his room never gets below 80°F. It’s ridiculous. We still haven’t come to a decision, and the days continue to get hotter.

So, in the evenings, since it’s cooler outside than inside, we take ourselves outside. We eat dinner on the patio, and listen to the birds chattering from their home in the enormous bougainvillea plant in the cul-de-sac behind our home. The neighborhood dogs bark in the distance relaying their important messages to each other. We joke with our neighbor when he comes outside into his backyard. The new fencing our association put in is taller than the previous fencing, so we can’t see him, which adds an extra funny element to our conversations.

We find ourselves going on bike rides. The shadows slant long through the Eucalyptus trees and dust from the bike trail swirls up as we ride along. We nod or smile at the others who are going the other way on the trail.

We take ourselves to the beach for some sand and water play.

And we welcome summertime. Because, really, what else can you do?

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Filed under Best Husband, Entertainment can be Cheap, Our Kid is Cute

May 21, 2013 · 2:45 pm

Weekends are the Best.

There really isn’t much more to add to that title, except that it seems that weekends just keep getting sweeter and sweeter as the days go by. This past weekend, we had been planning to go out of town but I canceled at the last minute just because I was feeling a little overwhelmed by life. So, we stayed home. I’m glad we did, because while it would have been fun to get away, but there’s so much preparation and strategy involved.

We stayed close to home, instead, and visited the Irvine Spectrum. They have a ferris wheel and a train that we’ve been meaning to ride. We also visited the splash pad, and having our own kid was great, because we didn’t look like a couple of creepsters.

After a meal at Ruby’s Diner… holding his tummy.

The next day, I spent some time out in our back yard cleaning up my plants, getting rid of some of the pots that have rotted from sun exposure, rescuing and repotting some plants, trimming back others, pulling weeds (who knew that potted plants get weeds, too). Sometimes I just have to stand there, turn around a few times, walk to that corner, walk back to the middle, and wait for a vision to come together in my head. Or as my former boss used to simply say, “I’m thinking.”

After I figured out what I wanted to do, then I let my little helper come out and assist me. I was worried that he would come out and rip up all the plants, or start digging the dirt out of the pot, but all he wanted to do was swing the fairy, play with the pinwheels and clang the “Cat Crossing” sign on the ground so I would say, “YIKES!” and he would laugh. Oh, this sweet child of ours. I am constantly blessed by his sweet, laughing spirit.

Thank you, God, for this sweet blessing.

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Filed under Best Husband, Entertainment can be Cheap, I have Family, Our Kid is Cute

June 19, 2012 · 3:26 pm

Be my neighbor?

In our community, parking is an issue. There are never enough parking spots to accommodate everyone. Everyone is supposed to park at least one car in their garage, but not all do, which results in an even greater shortage of parking spots. It has become such a problem that the Board is proposing a paid parking solution — 1st permit would be $30, 2nd one $150, and a 3rd would be $300. We have one neighbor who has 3 cars and not a one of them gets parked in his garage, so needless to say, most everyone feels he’s not very neighborly.

So last night, I got William in bed for the night, it’s been hot here, so I left his window open. Lately he’s had trouble transitioning from the first light sleep cycle into the next deeper sleep cycle, so he wakes 40 minutes after he goes to sleep, crying his head off. Tony will go in and pat his butt and rub his back, and William will go back to sleep. It takes about 10 minutes, but Tony likes to wait longer to make sure he’s really out.

And THEN last night… dun dun dunnnn… I heard a super loud car stereo. It was so loud I figured it must be in the cul-de-sac behind our townhome, because I was at my desk at the rear of our home and I could hear it clear as day with the windows shut. I think nothing more of it until I go upstairs to tell Tony that William is asleep, which I could see on the video monitor better than he could in a darkened bedroom.

I looked out the front window and saw that one of That Neighbor’s cars was parked RIGHT UNDER William’s window, in the red zone, with its door open, radio going full blast. I was stunned to realize that the stereo I heard wasn’t in the rear of house at all, it was in the front! Instead of driving two houses down to his own place, he parked illegally in front of ours! Idiot. He was out of his car digging in the trunk of one of his other cars, which was (of course) parked in guest parking in front of our home.

I went from calm to white hot livid, and I marched out there, in my pajamas and told him to move his car RIGHT NOW, that my baby is asleep in the room right above his car. He said he would, but then kept digging in his trunk. I stood there and glared at him, hands on hips, determined that I wasn’t going to move until he moved his car. His loud, radio blaring, obnoxious car.

He got the point and quit diddling around, went and turned his radio off and moved his car down to the next neighbor’s garage, still parked in the red zone, but at least not under William’s room.

Sometimes it would be easier, I think, to live in the country and just park on the lawn.

Fortunately, William didn’t wake up again, but, man! Weirdly, Tony said he couldn’t hear the stereo (not even the bass that sounded like an earthquake) over all the white noise in William’s room, which is just weird to me. But, whatever. I made my point. In my jammies.

Harumph.

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Filed under Entertainment can be Cheap, I own a Home, Our Kid is Cute

October 27, 2011 · 10:29 am

Frightful weekend!

As it turned out, last weekend ended up being our weekend to participate in fun and special Halloween things! The local historical park just down the road from us has an annual Fright Night. Our calendars have never meshed in the past to allow us to attend, so we usually ended up attending Knott’s Scary Farm or Universal Studio’s Halloween thing on a different weekend in October. Plus, I didn’t figure the local event would be all that impressive. This year, we happened to be available, so I lowered my expectations for the event and ended up being pleasantly surprised.

True, it wasn’t nearly as scary as the "professional" places, but they did have creepy, scary people roaming around. Their attempts to scare me always make me laugh at them anyway, so I got lots of laughs. They also REALLY did a lot of work with their Halloween lights (which were everywhere) and creepy sound boxes and frightful decorations dangling around.

The old schoolhouse, lit up with Halloween lights:

Weird (headless) bride and groom on the steps of the church:

Lots of Halloween lights everywhere:

On Saturday, the same place had a family event, so we invited the family over for a BBQ and then headed down the hill. The decorations were still up, but the scary-creepy people were gone and the freaky sound boxes were turned off. They had a craft area for the kids, local vendors who were giving away swag, games, a little pumpkin patch, kid friendly mazes, a costume parade, storytelling time, and kid friendly characters, many of whom were handing out candy. Captain Jack Sparrow even showed up to take pictures and hand out candy!

All in all, I think it was really well done and I actually did end up being impressed!

The schoolhouse the next day, not so scary! And Harry Potter was inside talking to the people who were wandering through.
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Captain Jack showed up. I have no idea who that kid is, I just wanted a picture of Captain Jack and his side kick!

I had purchased tickets through Groupon for one of the Queen Mary’s scary nights… and Sunday was the night. So off we headed for that! I was a little intimidated when we got to the area and the line to enter the parking lot was just ridiculous. Then the line to exchange the voucher for a ticket was ridiculous… more ridiculous, even, than getting into Disneyland on a busy summer day. At one point while we were waiting in one of those lines, I told Tony, "This event better not suck once we get in, because THAT would REALLY suck!" I know, I have a gift of phrasing things, don’t I?

Fortunately, the event was really fun and cool. There were a ton of people there and, as a result, the lines for the mazes sucked, but I never felt claustrophobic like I did at Knott’s Scary Farm that one year. However, if we do the event again (which we likely will), I think it would be worth it to spring the extra dough for the front of the line pass. But — they had live DJ’s in a couple different areas, one welcoming you into the entrance maze and one who entertained the line for another maze, along with some really cool pyrotechnics. They had a ton of creepy, scary zombie people who were really talented… better than the ones at Knott’s Scary Farm, I thought. One guy slid about 15 feet, sparks coming up off his knees, and stopped within inches of me! My response to him? "Whoa! That was cool!" He just stared at me. ha

We only had time to do a couple of mazes, and one of those went through the alleged haunted pool area of the Queen Mary. The whole thing was just a cool experience.

Queen Mary:

The “welcoming” DJ:

The haunted pool area:

Fortunately, the Groupon deal I purchased includes a day pass that we can use anytime through December 2012. I’m really looking forward to going back for that! This week it’s just been back to the usual… almost the weekend again!

(I’m trying out the post-by-email feature with this blog post. Hopefully it displays correctly…)

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Filed under Entertainment can be Cheap, I did something Special

July 3, 2011 · 8:33 pm

Idyllic.

Minutes ago, our black and white kitty sat perched on my lap, purring loudly in response to a brushing that two nights ago I had promised him I would give him “sometime this weekend.” I have no confidence that he knew what I said, but I do know that he looks forward to brushing sessions like a boat riding seasick person does to seeing land. Head turning, eyes searching for what he desires when someone walks past the drawer where the brush is held.

As our cat looks forward to his brushings, I look forward to my hour long swims on the weekend under the early morning sun. Yesterday morning and this morning, I arose early and made my way to our community pool in the hopes that I would beat the crowds of neighbors seeking cheap “Marco Polo” type holiday weekend entertainment. I win some, I lose some. Yesterday, I lost. Today, I won.

In the afternoon yesterday, when the heat became overbearing, we headed to our local mall and walked hand-in-hand with each other through a few of the stores (air conditioning!). We headed to the frozen yogurt place and joined the throngs of people waiting in line for our chance at the cold treat, eating hurriedly to minimize the melting and dripping. The perfect excuse to eat fast!

Satisfied with ourselves, we headed home via the Duck Park route. We noted a group of fowls gathered near the sidewalk. As we drew near, we noted that someone had spread a great amount of seeded bird food there. Although the location of the food was less than ideal given its proximity to the road, we were thankful for it because we had no bread or food for them, since it was a spontaneous drive by.

Other small events lent the weekend a sense of ease and leisure, although it’s not — not really. We’ve been doing chores and normal weekend stuff, but the pervasive feeling of the holiday is here. Of just having an extra day that’s our own to enjoy with each other. Of freedom.

I feel like our kitty getting brushed — happy, content, long-awaited desire met for extra time at home. It’s good.

Happy 4th of July.

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Filed under Best Husband, Entertainment can be Cheap, Who I am

June 19, 2011 · 9:58 pm

Oh my Goodness!

A lady came into the doctor’s office, trailed by her two tow-headed daughters. The oldest, about 5, the younger one about 3 1/2. The lady checked-in and her two girls squiggled up and shared a chair in the waiting room. Their eyes promptly turned toward the TV in the corner that perpetually plays “health” videos. On it, a video of a man getting oral surgery was playing, his head tilted back at an awkward angle (as if there’s a non-awkward angle in the dentist chair), blood on the protective paper surrounding his face. The oldest girl said, in a concerned voice, “Oh my gosh, oh my goodness… look…” She nudged her sister, and then in tandem, they both started repeating to each other and the room in general, “Oh my goodness, oh my gosh, oh my goodness…” Their mom sat down next to them. The video changed to show a line of kids about their age brushing their teeth, and the oldest summarized what she had seen to her mom, “That poor man didn’t brush his teeth and look what happened to him…” Everyone in the waiting room, and the receptionist, was wearing a smirk for the next 5 minutes.

We attended the U2 concert in Anaheim this past Friday night. It was a good show — of course it was. They are one of the few bands one can expect to deliver a good show, and they always meet the expectations. We’ve had the tickets for this concert for over two years (it was supposed to be last year, but Bono had emergency back surgery instead). We saw them back in 2009 at the Rose Bowl, and this venue was much more convenient for us. Plus, we attended with two of our favorite people.

People watching at concerts is always something to behold and this event was no exception. We had the Butt Crack Massager guy in front of us, whose hand kept creeping up and down his woman’s butt crack. Then we had the guy behind us who brought his kid, who fell asleep mid-concert. And the Worshiper, who was sooooo into the concert that he had his hands raised to the sky the entire time, even when there was no music. And, finally, we had the two young women who were sitting in front of us who we dubbed the “Hair Swishers.” The one was such a passionate hair swisher (she swished her hair every 30 seconds, minimum) that she banged the back of her head on my knee during one attempted swish. Oh my gosh, oh my goodness was the litany going through my head. Tony didn’t realize how swishy she was until they switched seats after a beer run and the swisher sat in front of him. Even he started to get annoyed, and his patience level is MUCH higher than mine is. Now THAT was funny to watch.

The Butt Crack Massager guy

Kid sleeping

Dude with hands in the air, always

Hair swishers. Ugh.

Yesterday we had another Duck Park Date. I found a loaf of bread for $.35 at Ralphs this past week and I immediately put “Duck Park Date” on our calendar. We were relieved to arrive at the park and find that we were practically the only people there! No fights, hooray! So we’re sitting there eating our frozen yogurt, and all of a sudden there’s a HUGE ruckus. Two geese started fighting across the pond. One of them grabbed the other’s neck and pushed him into the water. Feathers were flying, heads were being dunked, wings were flapping, and the honking! Oh my goodness, the noise! This was serious. I looked at Tony and said, “Whoa. Those girls that were fighting a couple weeks ago could take lessons from these birds!” And then we went over to try and break up the goose fight. Turns out, the dominant bird was a Papa protecting the Mama and their nest of 6 little babies. Have to say, that is something worth fighting about.

Then some idiot let his dog off the leash and the dog promptly went tromping into the flowers where the bird’s nest was. Mama Goose had a lot to say about that… I’ve seen dogs move pretty fast, but that dog? With Mama Goose on his tail? Oh, he moved… and it took her about 10 minutes before she was settled down enough to entrust Papa Goose with guard duty again and go back to her nest tending duties.

Do you see Mama Goose settling back down in the flowers?

Oh my gosh, oh my goodness!

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Filed under Entertainment can be Cheap, Entertainment can be Expensive

June 8, 2011 · 8:44 pm

Blogabilities – Week of 06/05/2011

* My right ear has been weirdly blocked for last couple of days. I mean, I can hear from it, I don’t have any pain, but when I chew anything — apples, gum, nuts — it sounds like I’m living in a drum. Even scratching my head makes it all echo-like in there. I’d say it’s like having water in my ear, but it’s not. *grunt* Very hard to describe and very weird. Hoping it goes away soon. I’m thinking it may be related to allergies, since my eyes have been really irritated lately, too.

* My boss is back in the office. The one who has the strange stuff happen to him when he travels. But not without a last hurrah of weirdness. So his travel day went well, his flights were even early. His flight landed and he was informed that the airport shut down minutes after his flight was on the ground, as well as all the freeways surrounding the airport (where my boss’ ride was), due to a suspicious unclaimed package. So, he sat on the tarmac for an hour, then they moved him and his fellow passengers, and everyone in the airport, into a quarantine area. For FIVE hours. The bomb squad finally blasted the package with high-powered water and then the package was deemed “harmless.” Apparently, some dude had forgotten to claim his harmless package and offered apologies. No arrests were made.

* My husband followed me home in his car from an outing this past weekend and told me that one of my brake lights was out. So he took that part of my car apart (and cleaned any remaining cat barf from the inside of my brake lens) and we headed off to Walmart to buy the appropriate replacement light. That little outing then turned into a spontaneous journey of getting paperwork from his doctor, then picking up a late lunch, eating that lunch at the local duck park, going to the grocery store to buy a cheap loaf of bread to feed the ducks at the duck park, and then back home again to fix my brake light. It was a beautiful day for spontaneous time spent with my husband… and ducks.

* While we were at the duck park we witnessed an inter-family fight. There was this whole family of people there, and two of the women and one of the men got into a physical fight. It was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. It consisted of a lot of hair pulling (so cliche) and jewelry pulling and clothing pulling with a couple of attempted slap swipes, a pathetic attempted choke hold by one of the women, and then everyone marched to the car, crying, got in together and the main woman who seemed to have started the fight was the driver, and she drove away all wild and swervily with all those people in her SUV. Maybe it’s because we’d just seen the new X-men movie, or because one of our neighbors is a recently retired UFC fighter whose fights I’ve watched (ouch!), but I kept saying to Tony, “Should I call the police? Is that really a fight?” Word of advice: It’s always best to talk things through like adults, but — really — if you feel the need to make a spectacle of yourself at the local family duck park, at least learn how to properly fight. Because you NEVER know. Someone like me could be sitting there eating my lunch and totally judging your fighting abilities. And then blogging about it later.

* One of my favorite performers, Shania Twain, is coming back to the stage in December 2012. I’m so excited! I’ve been watching her show, “Why not?” on OWN, and while much of it is frustrating and seemingly repetitive, I also know that’s the best way to work through the heavy emotional stuff. Especially if the heavy emotional stuff has never been worked through before.

* My new printer arrived a week or so ago. I finally took the time to install the software this past weekend and I’m building a relationship with it. So far, it’s meeting and exceeding my expectations, although there are still a few functions I need to test out. It’s definitely not a trial sized printer and it LOOKS like it means business. There were stickers on the side of its box pronouncing it to be a “team lift” project. Hopefully the UPS guy had a helper to lift it. ha

* When we go to the movies, sometimes I like to get a soft pretzel but I really dislike salt on it. I’m a mustard girl. After the movie, I was surprised to note that they had given me the salt packet separately. I know I’ve always been curious what’s in my pretzel salt, so I thought you might be, too. Let the mystery now be solved…

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Filed under Best Husband, Blogabilities, Entertainment can be Cheap, He Fixes Things, Weird is Fun

May 19, 2011 · 8:36 pm

Blogabilities – Week of 05/15/2011

* Remember the cat barf on my car I mentioned a couple weeks ago? i wasn’t sure how the barfer could top getting barf down in my gas filler area, but I am now able to tell you. For Friday the 13th last week, the Barfer barfed on the side mirror… and my hood, but the side mirror is the one that mystifies me. Trying to figure that one out… like, if it were bird crap, I could totally understand how it happened, but a cat? Mystifying.

* Also, on Friday the 13th, the coffee maker at work went out. Our Facilities Manager created this sign for the occasion and vehemently denied it being a Friday the 13th gag. I finally believed him when I saw the coffee machine fixing man out on Monday working on it.

* Did you know there are people whose job it is to go around to companies and restock their first aid kits with band-aids and Tylenols? I sure didn’t, at least not until I saw some dude in a uniform restocking ours at work. I’m still pondering what the guy puts on his resume as his official title. Also, what his qualifications have to be and how would one go about landing that kind of gig?

* Given my love for watermelon, and all melons in general, I have to say this story made me really, really sad.

* The owner of a company who partners with my company told someone pretty high up at my company that I am one of the nicest, most helpful people he’s ever worked with. He phrased the compliment in such a way that it sounded like he’s worked with me for years, although he hasn’t. Just goes to show that things do go through the grapevine, both good and bad. I’m glad this one was good.

* LivingSocial.com offered a deal with Fandango, 2 movie tickets for $9. Of course, I was all over that! We’re presently scheduled to see the new Pirates movie on Saturday morning and I can’t wait! Per Tony’s Movie Rules of Conduct, if the movie we’re going to see is a series, we have to watch all previous movies prior to seeing the new one… so, we’ve been watching all the previous Pirate movies this week. It’s a good thing I’ve been in a movie mood lately.

* Update on the washing machine fix… Tony determined that the broken part was actually a $30 part that we could buy at Sears. Once it was in, tested, and proven to be working, I called the company from whom I had ordered the $100 Brain/timer and asked to return it. In the course of the conversation, they learned that the part had actually been delivered slightly damaged. I told her it wouldn’t affect the operation at all, it’s just one of the four clips that hold it in place, the other three are just fine. She said not to worry, just go ahead and discard the part (umm, right, that will be happening) since they can’t sell it damaged and she would process the refund to my credit card.

* Last week, Tony’s parents went up to the family cabin in the mountains. For breakfast, they went to our favorite restaurant, pointed at our picture on the wall, and said they wanted one of “those messes for her” (“her” being me). The waitress knew exactly what order to put in for that (the Mess, no cheese, extra jalapenos), and then that night, my in-laws delivered said Mess to me at home. To say I was astounded and touched at their thoughtfulness would be an understatement. Then, when I opened the bag and saw these messages from the crew at the restaurant, I nearly cried. You guys, sometimes (a lot of the time), I either forget or don’t believe it, but I am so very loved.

Also, in case you were wondering, the breakfast is delicious. I separated it up into tortillas and rolled them up into “breakfast burritos” and froze them. There was enough for six of them. First time doing that, and it won’t be the last.

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Filed under Best Husband, Blogabilities, Entertainment can be Cheap, I have Family, Kid Substitutes, Money Hump Building

January 6, 2011 · 12:11 am

How It Came In.

A few months ago, the good Samaritan in the house (aka Tony) jumped his co-worker’s car for him. The guy, in an off-hand manner (everything this guy says sounds kind of off-hand, actually) told him, “Thanks, man, I owe you one.” And, as cool guys do, Tony said, “No problem.”

Fast forward to last Thursday, and I received a text message from Tony saying, “We have tickets to the Lakers game for New Years Eve.” My first thought was, “… and you’re taking me??? Yay!” My second thought was, “Are they real?” Ha! My thoughts are funny. Turns out, that was the guy’s way of paying back a favor. Which is how we ended up in Staples Center on New Years Eve, 7 rows up from the floor, center court, above the score tables.

Love the intense look on Kobe’s face. This was one second before he stole the ball, ran it down court and scored.

Pau Gasol is awesome. This series of pictures I took of him taking off his warm-up suit and running onto the court cracked me up… like he’s some supermodel or something, flinging his hair back…

You tell ’em, Fish!

Men In Yellow

Luuuuuuuuuuke!

Gotta say, nice biceps, KB.

We recorded the game, and I was glad we did because I’d forgotten how much I rely on being able to rewind stuff to understand exactly what happened and why the refs sometimes make the calls they make. Things happen so very fast during basketball games!

It was a close game… closer than it should have been. I don’t know what’s going on this season, but the Lakers just aren’t playing that well. But, for that game at least, the Lakers won (yay!) with over 100 points, and managed to keep the other team under 100 points. This is noteworthy because, since it was a home game, it meant that everyone who was there got coupons for two free Jack-in-the-Box tacos. Hooray for free food!

The next day, we were watching the recorded game and Tony goes, “Hey, there we are!!”

What? You don’t see us? Let me help you… that red spot is my jacket which I had just put on. To the left of the red spot is Tony’s purple jersey and beige shorts.

There we are! In the spotlight! We’d just been told that Staples Center was closed and we needed to exit the facility, so we turned around to gather our belongings and that there is our behinds. We definitely made the most of our 15 seconds of fame for the year.

Coming home after the game, we were traversing the opposite direction of massive amounts of traffic (imagine that, everyone going into LA to party for New Year’s?) and made it home just in time to watch the replay of the ball dropping in New York for the west coast.

And that’s how we brought in the new year. Oh, and they gave everyone those fun hats when we entered Staples Center.

Of course, I did other fun stuff over my four day weekend — highlights included a family dinner, organizing our tax book for 2010, sorting my vitamins for the next 4 weeks, water changes in the fish tanks (always), and weeding through the 500 pictures I took at the Lakers game (I discovered the rapid shutter feature on my camera a couple months ago).

With exciting stuff like that (and that’s just a small sampling), now you know why I don’t write more about the mundanities of my life every day.

(Love and Loathe is in the works, plan to post it Saturday-ish, but wanted to get this written and posted before it’s February. I would have had it up sooner, but instead I called my mom to wish her a Happy New Year’s. I knew you’d understand!)

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Filed under Best Husband, Entertainment can be Cheap, I did something Special, I Left Home for Awhile

September 26, 2010 · 9:06 pm

Fans of Sea World.

Friday night the 20″ box fan in our bedroom refused to come on. I think the motor burned out. It was, by my best math, about 8 years old. Not too bad for a $20 investment. We were faced with a weekend that was predicted to be one of the hottest of the season, over 100°F, and an even hotter Monday… tomorrow. Can’t wait.

We kept our plans to go to Sea World on Saturday morning. We always enjoy Sea World, although not quite as much as before, since they ended the Dining with Shamu series. That breakfast buffet was pretty awesome. I understand why they did it, out of respect for the trainer who was killed, but if they had asked me, I would have suggested that they just re-organize the dining experiences like they did the show… no more close contact between trainers and whales. But they didn’t ask me.

On the up-side, the new dolphin show is better than ever. I give it 6 thumbs up!

Anyway, Saturday afternoon we headed off to Walmart to replace the fan. Walmart was a bust, they didn’t have quite what I was looking for, so we hit up Target. It turns out, our local Target had all their summer stuff and a bunch of other stuff on clearance since they’re bringing in all their autumn stuff AND they’re revamping the store to put their grocery section in. We got an awesome $40 fan, which included a remote, for $20. Interesting side note: The price war where Target wins over Walmart has been happening more and more lately.

Other highlights of the weekend included an hour and a half swim this morning that felt like a mere 5 minutes in the water. I just can’t seem to get enough of swimming.

I also found a recipe to make my own instant hot chocolate mix, which I mixed up and put in my empty Swiss Miss canister. I also found a recipe for chocolate oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. It’s been too hot to bake, but I have the dough all mixed up and in the fridge ready to go when the weather cools off… hopefully this week sometime.

Or maybe, in the interest of baking my cookies and eating them, too, I’ll just set up the new fan to blow the heat out of the kitchen!

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